


Ain't Looking For Forgiveness

by waldorph



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Apocalypse, Future Fic, M/M, s05e10 Abandon All Hope...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-15
Updated: 2009-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-04 10:47:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waldorph/pseuds/waldorph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can read Dean Winchester because he remade him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ain't Looking For Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Bon Jovi's _Blaze of Glory_, beta'd by **green-postit**

Hundreds of his brothers and sisters dove from Heaven and tore into Hell; hundreds of his family members hurtling towards the soul of Dean Winchester.

Castiel could taste him—gunpowder and leather and humanity. Where others veered towards the seething pit of desperate, fresh souls, Castiel veered off to where Hell screamed loudest, where it was smoother, somehow: older. Where the torture was art form: where demons were honed and sculpted instead of slapped together.

He lost brothers and sisters—wings torn and wrenched, sliced off. Only an angel can kill another angel: those who fell turned on their brethren.

When Castiel found him, there had been souls on the rack, exquisitely spread out. Some begged, some were fresh. Dean Winchester was implacable; deft. Allistair's pride had been tangible, and was deserved. Dean had cut neatly—ribbons of flesh and entrails. There was a strange curiosity to the way he ran his fingers over the vibrating larynx of a soul, to the way he sliced into intestines.

Alastair's hands had skimmed over Dean's bare back, curved over his shoulders.

Castiel flared something hotly; a strangely foreign, possessive feeling.

He had hurled Alastair into the pit and grabbed Dean's shoulder. Dean's movement were smooth, a graceful turn and then the knife had been plunged into Castiel's chest. Even as he had, his eyes had roamed quizzically over Castiel's blackened wings.

"No," Dean said, just as he would say to Zachariah: to Michael, much later.

_Please_, Dean had meant. Unlike Zachariah and Michael, Castiel _knows_ Dean—could read him even as a demon.

Castiel had grabbed Dean so hard it burned them both, didn't let go, hurtled out of Hell and slammed into a decomposing body in a pine box.

Castiel knows the lines of Dean's body: he knows his expressions.

He can read Dean Winchester because he remade him—put him together again. Stayed with him and rent the earth to make him _whole_. For all the life (Grace) he poured into Dean Winchester, nothing will ever grow in that part of the world ever again. Castiel _knows_ Dean's every muscle, the curve of his fingernails, each hair on his head because he put them there, and then once he was whole, he had dragged him through the earth, and only when Dean was out of the ground, breathing on his own, squinting against the sunlight, did Castiel let go.

Castiel left his family—chose Dean over the hosts of Heaven. He has killed his brothers for Dean, and it is his mark that Dean wears. When Sam and Dean part ways, after the brothel fiasco, Castiel had finally relented and fucked Dean against a kitchenette wall.

"Mine," he growled into his ear.

"Yes," Dean had sobbed.

* * *

It was not a frequent occurrence—there are others, for Dean, in between the times Castiel fucked him against the hood of the Impala. There were battles to fight and people who died, and there was his search for a Father more absent than John Winchester had ever aspired to be.

God was not on a personal vendetta; had not left His children behind in the vain hopes of protecting them and has not yet reappeared when those children prove to need Him. If Castiel ever finds him, he will point to John Winchester and demand to know how God can be so lacking compared to a flawed human; will demand to know how God had ever allowed his second-eldest to kick his eldest son out of the house.

But in those times when Dean needed to get out of his head: that was one of those times.

Castiel is good at putting Dean out of that headspace. When Dean arches underneath him and whimpers, begs and pleads for release, squeezes down on Castiel's cock with a fine sheen of sweat over his body, Castiel wraps a hand around Dean's neck, presses inexorably until Dean is gasping, and then—then he allows him release.

It isn't something they ever talked about, and it may be so very human to take pleasure in the fact that he can keep Dean on his knees, thumb his lower lip and watch his cock slip between those pretty lips, but Castiel doesn't care.

* * *

Bobby Singer was murdered six months after the Colt failed to kill Lucifer. Castiel had been there as Dean and Sam had put Bobby's body into a junked car and lit it on fire—helped them sort through belongings and photographs and the many, many books that had made Bobby Singer so good at what he did.

"No plain not followed by a slope. No going not followed by a return. He who remains persevering in danger is without blame. Do not complain about this truth Enjoy the good fortune you still possess," he read.

Dean had looked up at him, then down at the script, and then laughed. "And see, those are the badass skills we need," he'd said, alluding to the fact that Castiel could no longer burn a demon from a corpse and was losing steadily his control of his wings. He could no longer walk in Dean's dreams.

"Can you speak it?" Dean had panted, late that night. Sam slept in the other room, hardly ignorant of what was going on in Dean's, but Dean seemed not to care.

Castiel mouthed Chinese tales and Arabic doomsday scenarios into Dean's skin. Part of him hoped they would lodge there and guide him; another could not imagine a more fitting canvas.

Sam had known: Sam could not have not known.

"Condoms," Sam had. "Invest in condoms. And toilet paper, if you want to listen to Chuck."

He grinned then, a disarming flash of humor in the midst of the end of the world.

Castiel smiled back: he was getting better at that, now that he was losing his Grace.

* * *

This is how Samuel Winchester was lost:

Consent must be given to enter a vessel—not necessarily informed consent, but consent nonetheless.

Coercing that consent is not a violation of any rules.

Forcing Sam Winchester to see his brother say "yes" to Michael was not a violation of the rules, despite the fact that it did not happen.

Assaulting him with the ghosts of Jessica Moore, Mary Winchester and John Winchester was not cheating. Assailing him with visions of Dean as a demon was perfectly acceptable, in the way it had been acceptable for Zachariah to remove Sam's lungs or give Dean stage four stomach cancer.

Sam Winchester could not survive five minutes in Hell, and lest you judge him too quickly, remember that Dean suffered at Alistair's hands, while Sam suffered at the master's.

He should be applauded for his restraint. He is deeply mourned.

Castiel knew the moment Lucifer has his ordained host—he felt it in the screaming sudden silence from his brothers and sisters fleeing.

All were gone, but Gabriel appeared and leaned against the warehouse door and looked towards the south: towards the camp where Dean was suddenly the only one left standing of his family. "You'd better go," Gabriel said, soft and weary. "You're the same, now. Last men standing." Castiel nodded, and on wings that resembled ribbons more than anything else, he passed through the gates of Camp Chitaqua.

"Sam Winchester was killed by Lucifer, and now his corpse is bein' ridden. You see Sam? Turn and run. If you can't run—empty the round into the sonovabitch," Dean was saying, looking out over the crowd. When he found Castiel there was no surprise, just a loosening of his shoulders. Perhaps Castiel has just made it habit to be in these places at moments of crisis for Dean.

* * *

Two weeks after Sam is taken by Lucifer, Dean sleeps with seven women and nine men (Castiel is certain that he is the penetrator—this is significant to Dean and to his partners; it establishes his dominance within this culture).

Chuck makes noises about condoms, and Castiel has been in this war for most of his life to know that the humans won't listen to him, won't take him as a leader: it has to be Dean. They won't respect him if they think they can _have_ him.

And that might be a rational explanation, but Dean walks into the cabin with the scent of another on him, and Castiel does not share well.

He has Dean pressed against the door before anything can be said, thigh wedged between Dean's legs, jacket pulled to his elbows to incapacitate his arms.

"The fuck—" Dean starts, and moves to buck him off.

Castiel snarls into his ear, bites harder and then biting at the juncture of shoulder and neck hard enough to taste blood. Dean's curse fades into a low, guttural sound that sounds like surrender: Dean just doesn't know it yet.

He strokes his free hand up Dean's ribcage, tweaks a nipple through grey fabric and rocks his hips into Dean's ass idly. Dean's breathing speeds up—anticipation mixing with apprehension.

He needs Dean to be here with him. He is _owed_ Dean's loyalty after what he's given up.

"Strip," he says, stepping back, watching Dean turn cautiously from the wooden door—cheek red from where it was pressed against it. _"Now_, Dean."

The jacket slides from his shoulders, followed by the grey tee. His hands hesitate at his waistband before he crouches to unlace his boots, stands and kicks them and his socks off and then undoes the button and zipper of his jeans, hooking his thumbs under his boxers and letting it all pool around his ankles. The tilt to his chin is defiant, and Castiel would take it as more of a challenge if he weren't already half hard; hadn't acquiesced so quickly. If his eyes weren't dark, and if he wasn't watching the wall behind Castiel's shoulder, hands loose instead of fisted at his sides.

Castiel stands. He knows Dean's body, but it is still something to see. The stark black of the tattoo over his heart and the pink raised welts from Castiel's grip had once been the only things marring his skin. Now there are thin white lines and puckered pink crossing over his arms and chest and back.

"Kneel," he says, voice hoarser than usual. Dean's eyes flick to his and then he does, knees apart, hands resting on his thighs and Castiel has to take a moment to press the heel of his hand into his dick because there aren't words to describe that.

Dean Winchester, willingly on his knees, a slow flush curling along his cheeks, completely and utterly trusting.

It's not surrender.

Castiel shrugs out of his shirt and pants—shoes and jacket discarded already while he'd waited for Dean to walk through the door, and he pads towards him, pausing just in front of him. Dean doesn't look up—his eyes seem to be closed, breathing even, and Castiel runs a hand through his hair, grips the strands at his scalp and tightens his fist enough that Dean's eyebrows come together, mouth dropping open. Castiel uses his free hand to drag his cock over Dean's lower lip, and Dean opens his mouth still-wider, leaning in. Castiel tugs him back, and Dean uses his tongue, instead. Teases it against the slit and under the lip of the head, swirls around—obscene—until Castiel cants his hips and begins to fuck into his mouth, silent.

Dean doesn't _like_ silence—given the chance he will mutter blasphemies or scream Castiel's name (bastardized, because Dean has an aversion to anything longer than one syllable, apparently). Will whisper and promise filthy things, will tell Castiel how much he loves being fucked; loves the drag of Castiel's cock against his ass, being filled and used.

And even now, with Castiel's cock sliding down his throat, Dean is humming around it—they would be words, but Castiel has no desire to hear them—not now. He pulls out, just enough to let Dean gasp a breath and then slides in until Dean's nose is pressed to Castiel's groin, lower lip against his balls, throat tightening and relaxing again, breathing hard and his whole body straining and it is _perfect_—but it's not quite surrender that Dean will stay there, with Castiel's cock down his throat as he fights for breath through his nose, hands digging welts into his thighs.

Heat is building at the base of his spine, pooling low in his belly and he pulls Dean off, precome and spit smeared over Dean's face, dripping down his chin. His lips are red and he looks… _used_. His cock juts from his body and his stomach is painted with precome from where he's bent against it—he looks ready to come, just from Castiel fucking his throat.

Dean whimpers when he's pulled off and that—_that_ is closer to surrender.

"On the bed, Dean."

Dean lays down on his stomach, trapping his cock between himself and the mattress and his hips stutter, helplessly seeking friction.

Castiel's hand comes down hard, flaring possessive. "Did I say you could come?" he asks, low—same tone he used when he threatened to push Dean back into hell. The tone that makes Dean _listen_. "On your hands and knees."

Dean shakes his head and then raises up onto his hands and knees, breath coming in heaving gasps. He's more than ready and without an impediment of some kind, Castiel can't draw this out.

Castiel runs his hand over the curve of Dean's ass, slides over the hole—still lubed, not quite closed up.

"Who were you with?" he asks.

"I—_fuck_, Cas—no one," he gasps, as Castiel twists his fingers inside Dean.

"So you…prepared yourself?" Castiel inquires, fighting a surge of satisfaction, because yes, that is _exactly_ what Dean did and Castiel can see it, Dean with lubricant and his fingers, fucking himself in a lavatory stall. Someday he'll make Dean show him, before this all ends. "Did you want this, Dean?"

"I—"

He's going to lie. Castiel twists his fingers viciously, settles and leans over Dean, slicking his cock with the lube from Dean's ass and spit. Dean shouts when Castiel's fingers brush his prostate and then whimpers when Castiel pulls his fingers out: vocal, but never begging. Dean will encourage, but never ask.

Castiel shifts over Dean's body, kneels behind and lines his cock up before fucking in, forcing Dean open beyond the minimal prep, giving no quarter even when Dean's breath hitches and his shoulders tense. If Castiel were to reach down, he'd find Dean's cock still hard and heavy between his legs. He likes to watch Dean's body accept him; swallow around the sudden intrusion, and Castiel contemplates just fucking him, hard and brutal, but that's not what this is about.

"Ask me to fuck you," he says, because Dean likes to hear him swear, and because if Dean wants this he's going to _beg_ for it, and remember that he begged. Remember it every time he even looks at another person, that Castiel made Dean beg him to fuck him. That Dean _wanted_ to beg.

"Ngh—_Cas_," Dean grunts, trying to move but Castiel digs his hands into Dean's hips and stays still, hips digging against Dean's ass.

"I- fuck, Cas, c'mon."

"What," Castiel says, bending over him and reaching one hand down to roll Dean's balls in his hand. He trails his thumbnail against the vein on the underside of Dean's cock, then pumps lazily, because Dean is so, so close, "do you want?"

"You." Gasped; a sheen of sweat on his body, and Dean is so hot, quivering to keep himself steady. Castiel can feel his thighs shaking.

"You have me." It's simple: Castiel is with Dean until the end.

Dean groans, a tortured, frustrated sound that echoes like a sob as his hands knead the sheets, and then yelps and throws his head back when Castiel squeezes the base of his cock and bites down hard on the back of Dean's neck.

"Ask me," he demands, quiet and implacable, biting Dean's ear. "And I'll let you come."

"Please," he gasps (sobs). "God- f-fuck me. Cas. _Please_."

Castiel smiles, thinks that _that_ is what surrender sounds like, shifts and begins pounding, a relentless rhythm that strokes over Dean's prostate almost cruelly and he releases his hand from the base of Dean's dick and Dean sobs, head hanging between his shoulders and pressing back down against the thrusts.

It almost does him in when he realizes what Dean is sobbing is _pleasepleasepleaseplease_, begging just to _come_.

"Come for me, Dean," Castiel rasps, stroking deep, and that's it, he's coming, clenching around Castiel's cock spasmodically, and Castiel's hands tighten around Dean's hips—this will leave bruises. Good.

"_Cas_." He's down on his elbows, now, unable to keep himself raised up, and Castiel's hips snap without his permission, stuttering as Dean deliberately squeezes down on him. He fucks into Dean through his orgasm, filling Dean up and pulling out, resting down on his knees.

Dean's hole is swollen and red, leaking and wet, white glistening down his balls.

He shifts, presses on Dean's hip and says, "Lay down, Dean."

Dean does with a slight groan and Castiel runs a hand up his thigh and over the curve of his ass, leaning down beside him to capture Dean's mouth in a kiss, licking into his mouth and Dean moans into it, opening for him as Castiel lays on the narrow bed with him.

He enjoys taking Dean's face in his hands and licking his way in, stroking his tongue along Dean's and then against his palate; running it over his teeth and drawing back to gauge Dean's reaction.

Dean always follows his mouth when he pulls back: follows as though he cannot countenance that this would be pulled from him.

Castiel can never stay away, but that lean—that moment before Dean's brain catches up with his body—is Castiel's favorite moment.

When he wakes, Dean has a low-slung pair of pants on and his hair is wet from a shower. He's sitting awkwardly on the bed—sore, Castiel realizes.

"Sam's gone," he says.

"Yes."

"I'm gonna kill that sonovabitch."

"No," Castiel says, sitting up as well. Dean's eyes flick up and down his body as Castiel continues, "but I think I know who can."

Dean shifts, looking at him and then his grin cuts, sharp and violent, across his face and he leans in for a kiss which Castiel grants, hand on Dean's neck.

They're neither of them saints, but they may yet be saviors.

* * *

Dean, shockingly, likes the plan. It is an endgame: they still have to wait Lucifer out. Still have to fight this war.

He calls Dean their "fearless leader," and it makes Dean look at him.

"I'm not torturing," he says flatly.

"I know," Castiel replies. He has never been a general but he was once a very impressive second, and is again. The humans are wary of him and he has Dean's undivided attention when he walks into view—it makes him worth listening to.

After a month it's as though he's always been here, and even Reesa forgets that she's pissed at Dean.

She's ex-marine, was home from Afghanistan when the apocalypse began, and even the other military men seem afraid of her; intimidated. Dean likes her, and Castiel approves.

Between the two of them they marshal this makeshift army well.

* * *

His siblings have gone, and so Castiel is the last remaining soldier in this war who saw its inception, and he is fighting with infants. They are all so young, and so fragile. Even as his Grace fades he is ancient—older than all of these children.

He writes on their bones, protects them as well as he can. This body is slight and it took him almost being destroyed by all seven archangels to learn how to fight within the confines of it, but he did learn. He doesn't need Grace for this, to hold a knife steady, to plunge it through a neck the way Anna did to Uriel. To save what is _right_.

This is the battle they've been fighting since Michael threw Lucifer from Heaven: there are days Castiel cannot comprehend _how_ he is the last of his kind here.

And then he is human.

* * *

"You're sure about this plan. Really sure," Gabriel says, rubbing the back of his neck. He's in the cabin Castiel shares with Dean—Dean is sleeping, his hands wrapped around the Colt under his pillow.

"I am."

Gabriel laughs, a nervous sound that skates up and down the air between them. Castiel doesn't move, the sheet pooled at his hips. He will not hide this: whatever his sins of the flesh are here, they are not those of a coward. Of the two of them, his older brother has far more shame to be conscious of.

"After it's done," Gabriel says, giving him a weary look, eyes flicking between Castiel and Dean before hastily turning away again. "Castiel—I'm not—I _can't_, okay? I'm done, I'm just… this is the end. Close the chapter. _Done_." He gesticulates wildly—paganism seems to incline one towards the dramatic.

"Can you save Sam Winchester?" This is the only loose end: the fate of Sam Winchester. Reason and experience dictate that he is screaming, forced into the back of his own consciousness to witness the atrocities Lucifer commits from within his body, but Castiel hopes that Sam has shut himself down; been burned out; is dead. It would be far kinder, if he were.

"No." Gabriel seems remorseful: he was fond of Sam.

"Then yes," Castiel agrees, flat and cold. He stayed and fought until shadows were all he had left of his wings, and Gabriel turned and ran: Castiel has no use for traitors. "After it's done, so will you be."

* * *

"What about the special kids?" Dean asks, slumped against a wall: Dean does not sit. Castiel suspects that he enjoys the display of power.

And that Dean's sure that he'll never get back up if he sits.

"Taken care of," Castiel replies. He has no problem sitting, stretched out with his feet propped up.

Chuck knocks, "Um, guys? Dinner's in the…" he trails off, looking at Castiel. "Sorry, it's still so weird to see you like this. With the—" he gestures to his own beard and then to his clothes. "You know. Like a soldier. Anyway, you want me to grab you food?"

"Yeah, Chuck, that'd be great."

Jesse Turner he killed, and the three other children bred like him.

Castiel does not know their names, but he is neither Dean nor Sam—the child was a danger to himself and all of them, and Lucifer would have used him brutally.

He made the choice, and he has their blood on his hands. They died quickly and well; mercifully.

He is a soldier in a war, and he will do what the children he fights with cannot—will not.

"Taken care of," Dean repeats.

Castiel just looks at him, and a muscle in Dean's jaw clenches, but he says nothing more.

Dean is a good general.

* * *

Dean's body is rough and worn—smooth lines of muscle and skin that Castiel wove back together with his own Grace marred by the life Dean leads: the choices he makes.

He is a soldier. He has a rough expanse of skin from fire: thin silver-white lines outlined in pink from stab wounds. His bones were Castiel's playground until Castiel's Grace was gone entirely, and even then it is enough.

When they finally confront Lucifer, he sees only Castiel: Dean is invisible, even when regarded from behind a brother's eyes.

Below, children are screaming. Soldiers dying in battle, and he thinks, as Lucifer turns to look at him with a furrowed brow and scans the room for Dean, that this will be the last time any children of God's die because of Lucifer.

"Castiel." He leans against his table, tilts his head, long body stretched out with a strange grace Sam could never manage. Castiel can see through Sam's face to Lucifer's—he is the Morning Star for a reason. Beautiful. "Come to take me up on my offer? I appreciate the lambs you brought to the slaughter. You can be public enemy number two."

"I already am," Castiel says, and Lucifer chuckles, turns to pour a glass of alcohol. There are six demons beyond the door: it is a mark of how little a threat Lucifer considers Castiel that they aren't even in the room. Or perhaps it's simply that in Sam Winchester's body Lucifer considers himself to be invincible.

Hubris.

"What will you do, little brother?" Lucifer mocks, and then his face smoothes and he tilts his head, swallowing his drink. "You are so _very_ peculiar."

Castiel looks at Dean, not for permission—to ensure that he will not have a moment's crisis.

This is not Sam: this is release for Sam. This is a kind death. This is mercy. Dean's eyes are red, and there are tears on his cheeks, but his jaw is set and firm and he nods. Permission.

Lucifer follows the gaze, moving with lazy assurance.

Castiel's knife stabs through his throat, catching briefly on the spine before angling around. All in an instant.

Only an angel may kill another angel.

He tilts forward and Dean's make abortive movement to catch his brother's body.

Lucifer gurgles, uncomprehending.

Castiel takes his brother until the expression shifts, and then Dean takes his, cradles the body and sobs into Sam's hair long after the sun has set.

Lucifer and Sam die forgiven. Loved.

Mourned.

* * *

That is not the end, though it should be. Just as the story should have ended with Michael throwing Lucifer from Hell, it should stop here, with Lucifer dead and Crowley stepping into his shoes.

It should have ended with that.

But it doesn't.

Dean heads back to camp to tell the people that Lucifer is dead and to get the word out.

Castiel stays, going down into the yard to look at Gabriel, who is watching Lucifer and Sam burn.

"He was my brother," Gabriel says, mouth wrenching. "He was…he was my big brother. My _everything_, and I couldn't—"

"I know," Castiel replies. He thinks, someday, that the story will draw the wrong parallels. If anything, Sam was more like Michael; vengeance-driven, looking to make amends and move forward, where Dean was more like Gabriel—wanting his family to stop fighting.

There are no easy parallels between the two Winchesters and the three First Angels.

"World could use a pagan god," Gabriel offers, and his smile twists, impish and cruel.

"No," Castiel disagrees, stabbing him in the throat and watching the corpse fall. "It could not."

He walks into camp and Dean looks over Chuck's head at him.

"We good?"

"We are."

Dean nods and then turns back to his conversation, but when Castiel presses his hand against Dean's side, Dean leans into it

They pull into Crowley's mansion and wait for him to come out to them. He does, black coat flapping behind him. Castiel is leaning against the car, Dean braced across the roof it, fingers laced lazily with the Colt resting between his arms.

He looks at them both and says, quietly, "Stopped him, then."

"Yes." Castiel's wings are back, and Crowley looks as Castiel stretches them. His "mojo" as Meg had called it is back. He proved it to her with a smile as she screamed and died; Dean had laughed. Castiel is the only angel on Earth.

"Owe you, I suppose," Crowley says. "Tell you what, just 'cause it's you, and I like you, we'll go back to pre-Luci levels."

"40% of it," Dean says, aiming the Colt at Crowley's temple. Castiel smiles, thin and implacable. Dean was the general who saved what is left of mankind, and Castiel is far older than Crowley, and Crowley is not an idiot.

"40%," he agrees, spreading his hands and exhaling. It's Castiel who pulls him in to seal it with a kiss: Crowley will not renege on the pact. Not now. Not when the one who might fall is an angel: not when Castiel could be the next Lucifer if Crowley reneges on the promise.

"That was stupid," Dean murmurs as they get back in the car and head towards Bobby Singer's home (which was, in fact, willed to Dean Winchester).

"I am already thought to be the next Lucifer," Castiel replies, listening for any whispers from his siblings. He had not realized it, but Gabriel and Lucifer had both made noise in their own ways; he is now entirely alone.

Dean watches the road melt beneath them before looking over at him. "And Crowley doesn't want another Lucifer."

"Precisely."

"That was pretty damn tricky, Cas," Dean decides, grinning faintly. "But now are the angels gonna—"

"They may," Castiel agrees. His Grace is very much back, though he cannot speculate on why—takes it to mean that perhaps their Father is rewarding him, or perhaps it is a spoil of war. The angels may come down, as Lucifer suggested, to take him out. Or they may stay in Heaven. Either way, this victory was not theirs; it was his, and Dean's.

"Great. Another war," Dean says flatly.

"A war we have already won," Castiel dismisses. Dean will, inevitably, fall apart at the loss of Sam and Bobby. He will have to find a new life, and Castiel will have to determine what it means to be the only angel on Earth.

But right now Chuck is calling them, _Blaze of Glory_ is thrumming through the Impala, and they are neither of them dead.


End file.
